Rick Porcello (SP—Tigers) Nifty game for Rick Porcello on Tuesday. He pitched seven shutout innings of two hit ball. Granted, it was against the Royals but you still have to go out there and deliver. So kudos to Porky. It's been a game of hit and miss with Porcello all year with no consistency from start to start. His 4.55 FIP is better than his 5.43 ERA largely because he has a strong ground ball percentage that is close to 50% and stays away from the home run much of the time having allowed just 12 on the year. His LOB% has been the largest issue with a 62.4% going into Tuesday's game. But a positive indicator is that he has pitched 3 quality games in his last 4 outings so hopefully this is a continuing trend as his LOB% should normalize closer to 75%. He's a risky option at this point, but he could be worth using in spot start situations as he seems to be ironing some of his pitching issues out.
Gio Gonzalez (SP—A's) On Tuesday, Gio Gonzalez pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing just 5 hits and striking out seven. The most impressive stat though was that he only walked one. Last year, Gonzalez struggled with his control as he had a BB/9 of 5.11. The strikeouts have always been there with a career K/9 of 8.48. But this year he has managed to reduce his walk rate down to BB/9 of 4.09. A significant drop. We have also seen that WHIP go down from 1.71 in 2009 to 1.29 in 2010. It's also worthy to note that over Gonzalez's last 12 starts, he has only failed to complete 6 innings in one of those outings. This is the type of consistency that the A's and fantasy owners are hoping to see more out of Gonzalez. With a solid ERA of 3.29 and big strikeout potential,. Gonzalez is certainly worth a pick up as he seems to be making considerable progress.
Marcus Thames (OF—Yankees) Marcus Thames has been seeing a few more at-bats these days and has been doing a nice job. Tuesday, he hit his 5th home run of the year but for the month of August he is batting .375. The Yankees need Thames' offensive ability especially with Alex Rodriguez out and as of Tuesday, Nick Swisher is day to day. On the season Thames has been putting up some solid numbers with reduced playing time with a slash line of .313./.398/.462. But I wouldn't expect this kind of trend to continue since Thames' BHIP is .402 and he only has a 15.1% line drive rate and a CT% of just 72%. Although he may see more playing time with key players out, Thames looks like he is due for some tougher times.
Lyle Overbay (1B—Blue Jays) It's really been a season of ebbs and flows for Lyle Overbay. Of late though he has been doing much more flowing than ebbing. Over the past 7 games, Overbay is batting .368 with a .555 OBP and 3 home runs. Overbay has gotten into streaks like this at times this season and then one or two blinks of an eye later, he freezes up again. Despite having a poor CT% of 77.4, Overbay typically has a pretty solid plate discipline and plus power. His normal 22% line drive rate is suffering this year with a LD% of just 15.9% this season. Overbay should pick those numbers up so this may be the perfect time to take a flier on him as he is hitting the ball well and you just don't know how long that will last.
Marco Scutaro (SS—Red Sox) Marco Scutaro has been wielding a pretty hot bat over the past ten with a a slash line of .385/.432/.487. Despite the hot steak, Scutaro hasn't been able to come up to par with the season that he had in 2009 with the Blue Jays. One factor seems to be that Scutaro exhibited enormous plate discipline last year, swinging at pitches out out the strike zone only 12.3% of the time. That number has jumped in 2010 to 18.8%, so consequently it should come as no greater shocker that Scutaro's OBP is way down from last year by 42 points to .337. Huge swing there. Although Scutaro may be the Red Sox lead off hitter, he is struggling to get on base with the consistency required for that spot. For a middle infielder, he is above the norm, but he is probably overvalued playing for Boston and coming off the career year in '09.
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